Thursday, August 07, 2008

State Senator John Whitmire and Rep. Jerry Madden want the state auditor to take another crack at analyzing the Texas Youth Commission's problems, the Austin Statesman reports ("Audit demanded, Nedelkoff off," Aug. 7):

A day after blasting the Texas Youth Commission for continued financial mismanagement, two key legislative leaders this afternoon requested a full state audit of all spending by the still-troubled agency.

“The Texas Youth Commission is continuing a pattern of, what appears to us, a willful disregard for the spending parameters set by the Legislature,” Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, and Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Richardson, said in the letter to Auditor John Keel.

“TYC was placed into Conservatorship due to gross fiscal mismanagement. We want to ensure that gross fiscal mismanagement is not continuing.

The letter continues: “Instead of spending money retaining and attracting new JCO’s, TYC has chosen to increase central office personnel. In addition, we have seen evidence that large salary increases are being given to executive staff members. Yet today, our juvenile correctional system sits without a functional classification system or proven treatment and educational programs.

“We understand that they are continuing to spend millions of dollars worth of capital improvements on facilities that were recommended for closure by your office utilizing funds to continue their operations that were not appropriated for that purpose.”

While Sen. Whitmire criticized TYC for "spending money out there like a drunken sailor," the Statesman editorial board today offered a more measured analysis of the situation with which I mostly agree:

This week, the agency released a proposed "regionalization" plan that would shrink, but not close, several units, while opening new lockups and halfway houses. The plan includes a major facility, costing as much as $25 million, to be built in the Houston area and to house 150 youths.

As Nedelkoff reasonably points out, "A significant number of youth and their families live in or near large urban areas. However, TYC facilities are rarely located within reasonable traveling distance from those urban areas."

Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, criticized the plan with a pointed remark: "Twenty-two percent of their beds are vacant right now, and they're proposing to build a bunch of new units run by the state? That's crazy."

The commission, Whitmire said, should have recommended closing some units in "remote, rundown rural areas" and put more emphasis on developing community-based programs rather than locking up youths.

It's going to take legislators, though, to take on the job of actually closing Youth Commission units in rural areas. They are there because some lawmakers over the years pushed to get them to provide at least some state job opportunities for constituents in high unemployment areas.

Nedelkoff is right to want youths whose offenses are serious enough to lock them up kept closer to home — even if society is quite willing to ship them to the wilds of West Texas. It's one thing to give up on a 35-year-old lifelong criminal. We shouldn't quit on a 15-year-old yet.

Still, the agency and the Legislature remain too much at odds. The worst abuses done to offenders may have been stopped, but reform is a long way from complete.

Here's the bottom line: TYC isn't using all its capacity, but if it actually shifted to a regionalized system with smaller facilities, it would still require new building. TYC has lots of capacity but nearly all of it's designed on the adult prison model that the Legislature has been urged to move away from.

So when Nedelkoff speaks of building 8 new halfway houses, for example, that to me doesn't seem inconsistent with expert advice the Lege received from other states and Governor Perry's blue-ribbon panel on TYC reform last year. I'm less convinced of the need for building larger lockups, like a proposed 150-person facility. If new money will be spent on construction it should go to build the types of smaller units we want to move toward in the future.

Even if responsibility for these youth ultimately shifts to the counties, new construction of smaller, regional facilities will be necessary because they just don't have capacity at the moment to handle the load. So I don't necessarily think Nedelkoff is moving entirely in the wrong direction, though I don't agree with all of the plan. But it's painfully obvious he's not done the legwork necessary to convince the legislative leadership they need to undertake this shift. Since Mr. Nedelkoff will be leaving soon, that Sysiphian struggle will fall to someone else.

67 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I think your right grits on all counts the vision has to be shared, capacity is down but the future is community based regional programming near urban areas who drive commitments and the shift has to being somewhere. Whitmire is short sighted how he got elected is beyond me, no people skills whatsoever. The spending issue especially as it relates to "phat" and inflated salaries is another issue. The agency has brought in alot of untested, unproven talent, and is neglecting its own home grown crop even while the pending closure of two facilities looms nearer with no place to put their leaders. while moving forward finally after the debacle that was 07 and early 08 the agency still engages in to many meeting that border on refreshers or orientations for agency leaders who don't read existing policy. We are on a different time line than the legislature due to a wasted year that they were misled to believe was productive partially out of political correctness. In addition, we aren't listening to what they (the lege) are telling us, close victory, close WTSS, and use the appropriation to build one facility close to a large committing demographic

Before the state has tax-payers "building new halfway houses" I suggest they visit a few of TYC's halfway houses.I wouldn't allow them to watch my animal yet alone my child. Spend the money making the JCO's get the training they need! Maybe if they were better trained, staph infection would be noticed before a whole facility is infected!

They wanted a Missouri model - we're moving in that direction - and they bitch.

Whitmire bitched about wanting his 25.m facility close to home - TYC said OK - and proposed it in it's plan. Right in Whitmire's land where we get the most juvenile offenders? Don't forget folks, juvenile justice problems come from his district in Houston, yet the punk "dean" has the balls to call out several sound plans?

He's missing his Pope.

Her Husband isn't I'm sure.

If he looks like Elmer, smells like Elmer and acts like Elmer, well then, he must be, Elmer.

hopefully this blog string won't be full of disgruntled employees who will grieve injustice and how TYC needs to be shut down by sunset only to cry about their job when they don't have one. WTSS is our model, the population can't be decreased fast enough to keep up with the depleting work force. This has nothing to do with anything other than self fulfilling prophecy. Whitmire has done nearly as much damage as our inner turmoil.

Did the Whitmire get upset over all the money spent on the new furniture and mess that Mrs.Pope did?

If, TYC is raising the salaries of the CO administration, good for Whitmire pointing that out. JCO staff need those raises and the people in the field that deal with the real problems everyday. Note: I am not a JCO Staff either!

Has Mr.Needlekoff helped out line staff and others against unfair supervisors and grievances? No, he has done nothing. If the policies are there, they are certainly not following them. Are we taking care of staff and encouraging them to become better staff by training. No, training is just going thru the motions,IMO.Which no one gives a crap about what I think. The motivation for working at TYC is simple just like always, IF you don't like , or like what I say, Hit the damn door. Actually we were told that this week. We were told to stop writing grievances, tired of them. Moving forward for a better climate for kids, no, we have taken 6 steps back and no steps forward.

I wish someone could fix TYC and make it a good place, I wish we could figure out how to do this, but money, legislators, or conservators can not fix the inners in TYC. Shut it down, no we don't want that, we just want a stable place that we can go and work with nothing but the rehabilitating kids being our main focus. Can this blog and all who speak fix TYC and find all the answers, No, we can just give our best opinions and hope for the best.

Maybe Walenta's sterling performance in January mesmerized Whitmire because Needleman made it pretty clear this was the direction he was heading. Whitmire must not have heard it as he was enjoying the sound of his own voice bantering on and on about one thing or another that was really only halftrue and not really substantive. Oh. That's pretty much him all around. But anyway it was clear back in January that the legislative committee was not interested in hearing about future plans for placement and facilities because that was not really the point of the meetings. God forbide that someone actually have a plan. THe whole bit about being 22 percent empty and then criticising for "expansion" is ridiculous. Expansion is not really accurate because there would be no institutional population growth or expansion, actually institutional populations would decrease further with that many more halfway houses, it is more like relocating population).

I still don't see how Whitmire thinks he will convince Texans to take these uncontrollable felons back to their communities for rehabilitation. They simply don't have the resources, and more importantly they don't have the will to do so. He is not making political friends by demanding the closure of facilities so that new ones can be built in his district. The longer it goes the more clear it is less about reform than politics and ego.

The youth of this state are getting a real "education" in dysfunctional State Government.

I hope the legislature will finally wake up and begin to understand that incarceration of youthful offenders is very expensive. Perhaps then they will begin to put more into mental health services for kids in trouble rather than waiting for them to commit a felony and then crying because the bill for their care just tripled!

It is really difficult to believe how really little progress has been made in the last two years.

The facts are whether we close WTSS or VFCA is relative only to the future. There is no appropriations for either facility after 09. However, the downsizings to this point have been due to unavailable JCO staff and operational strength not because the agency is moving towards RIF. WTSS has less staff every week and Vernon hasn't been able to move back to 8 hour shifts with less than 100 youth. Think of the cost per day associated with a facility that size and then compare to contract care.

Looks like I picked an eventful week to go offline and move back to TX. Quite a lot happening with TYC.

On the heels of devastating new evidence of educational shortcomings and sexual abuses, the lege writes a letter claiming that the chief reason TYC was put in conservatorship was for "fiscal mismanagement"? Really?

As I recall TYC was placed in conservatorship because high level leadership chose not to answer questions about Ray Brookins and John Paul Hernandez, and the money issue wasn an afterthought that came along when Needelkoff removed Dementia.

Ain't Texas politics a real joy to watch. let's get rid of the the who;e lot and start off with a new bunch of liars.

An agency can be placed in conservatorship only for gross fiscal mismanagement. The legislature made a finding that by paying salaries to Brookins and Hernandez, TYC had engaged in gross fiscal mismanagement.

"On the heels of devastating new evidence of educational shortcomings and sexual abuses, the lege writes a letter claiming that the chief reason TYC was put in conservatorship was for "fiscal mismanagement"? Really?"

"An agency can be placed in conservatorship only for gross fiscal mismanagement."

I am curious if that is indeed the only reason an agency can be put into conservatorship under the law.

The full picture of the corruption and sexual abuse issue has never been exposed. I suspect that the sexual abuse matters goes far beyond the perpetrators of the abuse being limited to administration / management level people of TYC. That probably extends to top people in, or closely related to Texas legislators and state government bureaucrats. Just my opinion, but not a completely unfounded opinion.

There is no "education" happening at TYC. There is no "rehabilitation" happening at TYC. Those qualities have been missing in action since TYC's founding. Again I say, it is a failed system. All patch-up measures will not rehabilitate or conserve that system.

"Ain't Texas politics a real joy to watch. let's get rid of the the who;e lot and start off with a new bunch of liars."

Agree wholeheartedly.

Same goes for national government. Let's give a new batch of liars, cheats, and theives their chance to destroy the republic and everyone in it.

Whats the deal with Whitmore and Madden?????? They seem to be happy oh lets see they didnt mind when the Pope spent all of that money did they Hmmmmm Then they spent all of this money on Radios that are Junk then every timewe hear something new it cost us Money,,Change this Change that man they need to get a Program started and do that Program ,,,Man all State Agencys waste money its a known fact just see how many State Employees in Austin have taken something ??? And what about the warehouses around Austin??? Man they are full of Surplus items that need to be sold... Hell Madden dont keep complaing to us tax payers on what you set up just do your damn Job!!!Its so funny when the Pope was here She could spend what She wanted Ha thats why TYC was broke within a month no we should take action and remove these useless leaders like madden and whitmire,, Get em out!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey why dont they do something with Brownwoods unit II??? Why do we keep paying and paying on a Unit that has no Youth in it?????Ok Madden and Whitmire you answer that one ????? And they keep on Hiring and doing Job Fairs in Brownwood but they only have about 140 Kids???? Man thats quite strange isnt it??? Where I come from we use everything and we do not have the pleasure of just spending money that we do not have!!I would either use the place or lease it to a Private contractor like they would like to do but one thing is that it wouldnt be empty and with Staff just doing odd jobs I think TYC is not a handyman service!!!

7:03 wonders if an agency can be put into conservatorship only for fiscal mismanagement. The relevant statute is the Texas Government Code Chapter 2104, which has the title "Conservatorship for Fiscal Mismanagement".

I don't know if anyone remembers, but the meeting of Legislative Audit Committee in March of 2007 which made the recommendation for the conservatorship was one of high points of drama surrounding the TYC debacle.

Pope spent gobs of money, not just on the furnishings of her office - she hired dozens of useless cronies at inflated salaries; she contracted for a very expensive and almost totally useless "treatment" program, she "Cleaned out" the HR dept and replaced the incumbents with folks who are far less responsive to the needs of the agency, and she promoted some of the more useless TYC managers to positions where they had the power to wreak havok. Where were Whitmire and Madden then? On the sidelines, cheering her on! I don't blame Nedlekoff for trying to bail from a no-win situation.

there has to be a TYC in the juvenile justice system. You can diminish the need somewhat but to eliminate it all together would be a huge mistake. I wonder what the statistics already look like with certifications and determinate sentencing after the changes that have already been made. i.e. - no misdemeanor commitments and the age change from 21 to 19.

There has been a slight increase in DSOs, which is probably not a bad thing. The DSO classification gives the youth a chance to avoid prison if he complies with TYC programming, and TYC can take him back to the judge after 6 months (if he has passed his 16th BD) if the youth wants to continue his criminal ways in TYC>

Seems like this is a great time to be a juvenile delinquent in TYC. It’s like emersion training in a culture to fast track a kid into a career criminal. Perhaps TYC should do a commercial targeting kids who want to be criminals to help increase the TYC inmate population. With the central office vs. legislators drama the line folks appear to be left to fend for themselves with the kids basically in control. It could support a theory of TYC as a feeder for TDC and then it makes perfect since to continue the selfish culture of the do nothing drama of CO vs. legislators. Line staff just need to stay out of the way and try not to get hurt physically or hurt by the 1 800 crybaby hotline. It’s a shame to have closed such fine facilities with safe working conditions and wonderful rehabilitation programs such as Turman’s Mountain View State School for Boys.

“Some administrators and politicians you just can’t reach so you get what we got”

On the issue of building, TYC leases halfway houses, thus does not spend capital funds (Building monies) for halfway houses. Capital funds are very restricted in their use and the legislature receives proposals on how much and where the money is spent before TYC is authorized to have bonds issued to fund those projects. On the monies for a facility near Houston, that is a capital line item and those monies can not be moved in mass without the governor and the LBB signing off on it.

As to fiscal mismanagement, that is a concept that really only has arisen under the reform. The state auditor had to come up with "paying salaries" to sexual perverts is "gross fiscal mismanagement" because he had no other fiscal mismanagement since at the time TYC had been recently audited by the Auditor and the Comptroller and passed with flying colors. Financial problems is not something that can be directed at TYC before the "Reform." Pre-Reform no one ever bought a $500 paperweight or even thought about such a bizarre expenditure.

Yall think TYC is the only ones effected by this sludge we call the dean? Hell no you're not. Juvenile Probation is getting screwed by this mess daily. Just go ask anyone of us in juvenile probation. Hell we don't have many places to put these nut cases.

Is Ron Jackson fixing to close? Is Ms. Herrera going to be the JCO VI even though she got that job while being out on Medical Seperation and also didn't she get in trouble by committing a felony by stealing time from the books. Ms. Herrera was falsifying records of her time sheet and somehow Ms. Linda Smith covered Ms,Herrera's ass. Shouldn't Mrs. Hererra been sent to prison on this? How can this keep continuing but let that be a staff doing all of this then they are fired. How can Mrs. Herrera be able to get the JCO VI position when she was medically seperated. Something crooked is going on.

John Whitmire is an idiot. I could only hope that you in every county, every district, could see this for yourselves. That guy is an embarrassing force in Texas. Let John rest - in his own pastures - Texas.

Executive Mgmt has always been the ones to get merits. Never any money left over for the people that do the work. This has been brought up in the past about the new TDCJ people coming in making salaries above the posted amount. Return to work retirees making what they were making when they left. How is that saving the state any money? Only at TYC! there are people still earning the same amount of hours they were earning when they left. Why? because HR is so incompetent they don't know what the hell is going on. Take a survey of what Managers and above are making and you will flip out.

It is time for 1. the leadership to grow a set and do their jobs.2 the whiners and bottom feeders to just go away. 3 to give credit to the teachers who do their jobs everyday and remove those who badger kids ,staff and adminastrators. 4 Austin to pay line staff,maintance,and admin. staff a competive wage.5 get rid of folks like Ayo who was not even a good case worker . 6 someone to start cleaning out the useless,inept,over paid in Austin,then do the same at each campus. There are alot of us who quitely do our jobs very well . Twenty years ago Central office was on just one floor ,and everyone knew each other. It is time to stop the B.S. cut the excessive pork at all levels. This witch hunt must stop, Convict and evict the guilty including the knotheads in the legislature. Give us the tools and admin. we need to do the right things for the kids who want and need a chance to be successful.

The not so secret thing is that Evins is now way more screwed up than it was pre you know what and the prospects for tricking the DOJ next week don't look very bright. Things here are breaking down faster than they can or will be fixed.

It is interesting that the two most troubled campuses, Al Price and Evins, are on a sacrosanct list, while others that have no where near the troubles of those two are on Whitmire's hit list.

It is pretty clear that Whitmire has no desire to reform TYC - never had. 15 years ago, he was talking about how expensive it was to keep a kid in TYC as opposed to TDCJ. Then came his insistence on those open-bay 96 bed dorms, with reduced JCO supervision. The pattern has been clear from the beginning. He wants the kids in prison, period. (and "spray 'em down if they don't do what they are told")

TYC has a reduced population for many reasons. One is that the misdemeanants and over 19's are almost all out. Second is that youth are not being sent to TYC because the courts don't trust TYC's current environment, and it was mentioned at a hearing earlier that juvenile offenses were down, maybe because they're scared of TYC now.

If TYC is going to be running smaller regional facilities, don't those facilities need to exist before youth can be moved into them? A lot of the youth in TYC could be in smaller facilities right now, but there's nowhere to put them, so they're stuck in high security, remote prisons. What is wrong with establishing the smaller facilities, then moving the youth?

The idea for the new constructed facility came up way before Nedelkoff joined TYC, and now legislators are mad? That funding money was already supposed to be used for the new facility, so why is Nedelkoff getting blamed?

The reason there's no on looking at at any other facilities is that all of the agency's attention is focused on a broken camera at WTSS. Kids can riot and burn mattresses and do thousands of $ of damage to a facility, but it's not a problem as long as they don't hurt the sacred camera. We gots to have priorities.

What happened to that friend of Kimbrough's who got a contract to develop a new classification system for TYC? Bet he got paid and Texas got screwed. And Conextions (or more appropriately "Dis-Conextions), the new treatment program is expected out some time around the end of the world and it promises to be as big failure as any devised by the new management to this point. And nedelkoff started out with some real potential, but slipped into that same old good ol' boy system that got TYC where it is today. Now most of his time and energy is devoted to figuring out how he can get out of this nightmare and still have any credibility at all. When all is said and done, these buffoons posing as juvenile corrections experts will milk this system for all they can and then ride off in seach of another failed agency to plunder.

CoNextions is a piece-meal program that will never work and is not a treatment program. It's sad to think our leadership is still trying to get this off the ground.

Evins has youth on the roof tops every week and then they riot, burn mattresses, and the staff (about 10 of them) stand around and do nothing but watch. And we are getting better, this is what Regionalization of youth does to a program.

We have said this for years and no one listens. All we hear is, it's good for the kids. The people saying this never worked at one of these facilities.

IMO, our politicians are to blame for the lack of reform and restructuring in TYC. They allowed Central Office to hire employees without any TYC experience when they threw the baby out with the bathwater. Not once but twice, I guess they are hoping the 3rd time will be the charm, but it’ll probably another strikeout.

They have stuck us with the TDCJ & out of state mentalities!! I’m still wondering what Louisiana, Maryland, California, Missouri and other states have to do with Texas or TYC. Other than their astronomical salaries, we have not seen anything come down the pipe but big insatiable egos.

They are trying to roll out a treatment program that is supposed to work for every incarcerated youth in TYC, well that sounds like a well thought out idea, doesn’t it? I’m sure all those “special needs kids” will also benefit from this program, don’t ya thunk! NOT…

We are receiving emails from employees we don’t even know and have no clue how a facility works much less what needs are unique to it. There is no progress because they don’t know what they are doing. The field waits and still waits and remains in a state of limbo. Still wonder why we are in this predicament?

Announcements to welcome new employees in central office are almost a daily fare now for positions created specifically for them? Who is approving the hiring and salaries? Top heavy, you bet!! It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what’s wrong with the agency, but add to the mix the politicians and we may never have a solution, they will not accept responsibility but will place the blame elsewhere. I rest my frustration and pray for salvation. The employees in the field are doing the best they can with what they are given, may the good lord continue to bless them.

Our politicians need to take a good look our new and improved Residential Services Department & the hiring practices of the HR Department in Austin. Their reputation precedes them as being rude to the field employees.

Can somebody explain the $17,810,631.00 award TYC gave to Youth Services International of Sarasota, Florida for Conservatorship services. I found this on the Electronic State Business Daily websuie. Look it up under esbd.cpa.state.tx.us under awards for Texas youth commission.

"Our politicians need to take a good look our new and improved Residential Services Department & the hiring practices of the HR Department in Austin. Their reputation precedes them as being rude to the field employees."

For those of us who don't work in TYC, what does this mean? We've read the article about the high salaries and now you're saying there's a problem in Residential and HR. This is very interesting!

Howard, Any idea what this award to YSI might be for?Would they award a contract for the provision of youth services (like a contract care facility) in this manner? Or might this be for consultation services?

HR is a joke as you all know. Mary W ran all the tenured staff out with her TDCJ attitude her words were that she was there to do the job that Eric hired her to do, yeah right and where is Eric? Her managers are a joke and have no HR state experience, they are walking around mmaking the money and can't do the job. You call them and they always say let me get back to you. The time is all messed up no-one is on top of that anymore. USELESS RESOURCES!!!!!

As to fiscal mismanagement, that is a concept that really only has arisen under the reform. The state auditor had to come up with "paying salaries" to sexual perverts is "gross fiscal mismanagement" because he had no other fiscal mismanagement since at the time TYC had been recently audited by the Auditor and the Comptroller and passed with flying colors. Financial problems is not something that can be directed at TYC before the "Reform." Pre-Reform no one ever bought a $500 paperweight or even thought about such a bizarre expenditure.

the significance of this is often overlooked. TYC had some problems...but what they are specifically bitching about ($$$) was NOT and NEVER HAD BEEN one of them.

It now takes 3-4 months to get a field position posted; meanwhile, Central Office, particularly the HR dept. grows and grows in positions, but not in responsiveness. Go Mary! Go back to TDCJ. Join your buddy, Pope. Oh, that's right, you won't have to go too far, Whitmire is going to get his way, finally. It's all going to be TDCJ.

Anybody know how many people from CO are in New Orleans at the American Correctional Association's conference this week? With the lege focusing on TYC's spending, is it a good idea to spend all that money on airfare and hotel bills?

hopefully the audit will uncover more than HR and "managers"...are all the travel expenses really necessary? Oh...it is vacation time. And how much managing does "special programs" really need? As for the trainers...well, this could really get interesting! Is there a ball game scheduled some where, any where?

9:44 You've sure got something stuck in your craw. Are you going to keep posting your questions maligning the business managers on every blog? Sounds like a personal issue to me. What's the matter, did you apply and not get accepted?

some of these comments are very selfish. there are a lot of us working for TYC that are very concerned for our lively hoods, paying the bills, and putting food on the table. the issues here are very serious and most of us want to be informed and possibly discuss some solutions. point the finger if you have a valid concern. ask questions to be informed. but quit using this particular forum to get into a personal pissing contest. there are plenty of dicks in TYC that will win that race. can anyone enlighten us on the issues of budget, salary, and possible mismanagement of funds? after all, if we are state employees, the limelight will shine on all of us if there is someone at fault. the media and the public have already proven that. they are buzzards circling for the next scandal. let's circle the wagons!

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